Adding a password protected HDD

How is the drive password protected?? How did you set that up?

There is a good chance the disk cannot be picked up by the AE because it cannot be accessed by the firmware.

The whole idea with a network drive is the network provides the protection.. so you will see you can set disk password in the airport utility.

So it may simply not allow the change..

But it can be something even simpler.. not all USB drives work.. the drive can work on the Mac but fail on the AE because it simply doesn't have a driver.

Tell us what drive it is, make and model.

The database is still growing but anyone who can add to it is greatly appreciated.

USB drive compatibility with Airport Routers. Help make database.

It is simply not going to work..

Airport is not designed for NAS type work.. and the use of accounts on the Extreme.. which can be done.. and will give you full protection.. also stops you accessing all the existing files.. You need to set this up from scratch with empty disks..

What you can do is setup a virtual disk on the USB drive and password that.

You will need to copy all the files off the drive.. reformat it.. plug it into the extreme.. then create a disk image on it.

You can create DMG file or Sparsebundle..

Then copy your files to it. However the one limitation is that only one computer at a time can open the disk image.. it cannot be mounted from more than one computer.

Let me suggest to move forward.. buy a proper NAS... the introductory level devices like WD MyCloud are not expensive but offer hugely improved data controls than the AE with USB disks.. or go up to Synology etc and do it with full blown NAS.. but that will cost you.